The Day After The Revolution
by GSmith
Summary: The world looks a whole lot brighter, the morning of Sati's sunrise.


The Day after the Revolution  
  
By GSmith, 2003  
  
gsmith@slipgate.demon.co.uk  
  
It was a beautiful sunrise this morning. Really, really beautiful. I got out of bed and had a lovely warm shower. Just for a change, I didn't get a cold jolt sprayed at me when I first turned it on. I hate it when that happens. Little things like that can ruin a day. But today, well, I was lucky.  
7:03am. I walked down the stairs, shouting back up at Samuel as I went. He's eleven years old – I have to call him half a dozen times before he even thinks about getting out of bed on a school day. I like to start the shouting early.  
7:10am, I'm just putting milk on my chocolate frosted Tastee Wheat, and Samuel appears.  
"Well, how about that. Miracles do happen." I say, with a smile. Of course, he doesn't answer. He might be awake and out of bed, but his brain won't start to function for a little while yet. But like I say, he's eleven years old.  
But, even though we sit there at the breakfast table in silence, there's a certain feeling of... comfort in the air. Home, I guess.  
I tell Samuel he can watch cartoons on DVD for 10 minutes while I check my e-mail.  
"Hey Mum! Did you fix this or something? I can fast forward through the copyright notice! Cool!"  
I went on-line to check my e-mail and to confirm an order for a birthday present for Samuel. Normally I hate this particular site, but I was kind of lucky today – they must have taken the pop-up ads down for maintenance or something. Like Sammy says – cool.  
8:30am, and I've dropped Samuel off at school. He'd been a little more talkative during the journey – poking fun at the dashboard Jesus that bounces up and down when we hit a bump in the road. I scold him, but only lightly. I like his irreverence, and I don't believe in making serious subjects inaccessible to kids by making them too... well, serious.  
There's a lot of traffic on the roads, as usual, but it seems to be moving easily and there's a certain flow to the way the cars are weaving in and out of each other today. You can tell that pretty much everyone is going to make it to work on time.  
That turns out to be true, for me at least. I'm a little early, in fact, because I find a parking space straight away. So I buy treats for Rebecca and me. She's the lady I work with. There's normally a queue at the bakery stand that means I don't have time to get anything. But today I buy a blackberry muffin for me and a pretty calorific jam-infested donut for Rebecca.  
8:50am, and Rebecca's already eaten the donut. She's in early too.  
"No traffic problems at all today, Deborah. I glid into a parking space too."  
"And me."  
Rebecca and I work for a company called Mulpha. We're not exactly executive level – we work in the third floor post-room. There's only the two of us on this floor, and mostly the job is okay. We enjoy each other's company, which is great. Mostly the work is easy and straightforward, and the only major problems we have are papercuts. Like I said, not really high- class executives. But we get by.  
"I saw something unusual on the way in, actually." Says Rebecca, wiping jam off her chin with a tissue. "The church has changed the slogans on their advertising boards outside."  
"Our church?"  
"No, the one off 9th. I doubt you pass it often. Anyway, the signs outside hadn't changed for, ooh, a million years or so. I know them off by heart, everyone around there does. "He Turned The Water Into Wine" and "Never Forget - Psalm 11:5". But today they'd changed. First time, seriously, in the six years that I've been passing the church."  
"What do they say now?"  
"That's what I thought was kind of strange. It's nothing biblical, s'far as I know my Bible. One says "Freedom" and the other just says "Choice".  
"Weird. Kind of minimal." Today we went the whole day, and not one papercut. Also, someone had ordered self-sealing envelopes for a change. In fact, couldn't even find the old ones that left a nasty taste in your mouth from the glue sealant. It's like there were none left on Earth.  
The end of the day came by pretty fast. Not too fast that the whole day seemed a waste, but not a slow and boring day like so many of them are. Kind of cool, quoting Sam again.  
"So, those signs outside the church – kind of different, huh?" I said as we left.  
"Yeah." Rebecca replied.  
"I guess there's a new guy in charge."  
"Must be."  
  
** 


End file.
